Deaths force US college fraternity to ban 'hazing' initiations

Joanna Walters

New York: One of America's oldest and largest college fraternities is to ban initiation rituals associated with earning membership after a series of deaths and injuries among young students.

The Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity will attempt to eliminate the notoriously humiliating and sometimes dangerous practices, often called "hazing", foisted on newcomers among its 14,000 members at colleges across the US.

Hazing is illegal in 44 US states but is often difficult to prove. Photo: Reuters

At least 52 members of different fraternities have died from hazing or fraternity-related incidents in America since 2005, 10 of them at SAE, making it the deadliest, according to research by Bloomberg.

Undergraduate fraternity societies are associated with binge drinking and rowdy parties, but also with rituals for incoming students. Extreme examples include waterboarding, forced eating of cat food or raw chicken, mock kidnappings and beatings, holding hot coals, and students made to recite oaths standing waist-deep in ice cubes while being hosed down.

An SAE spokesman did not deny that as many as 10 of its members had died during fraternity-related activities since 2005, but was unable to issue a statistic of its own. "We acknowledge that we have had an unfortunate and regrettable number of incidents and deaths that are tied to Sigma Alpha Epsilon," fraternity spokesman Brandon Weghorst said.

He said it was specifically banning the practice of putting prospective members through the stage known as pledging – a sort of apprenticeship accompanied by "proving" rituals that often escalate unchecked into violent "hazing".

Advertisement

"We hope to lead the way for other fraternities," Mr Weghorst said.

Hazing is illegal in 44 US states but is often difficult to prove and is hard to stamp out, partly because fraternity culture is so deeply ingrained on campuses.

"My impression is that they are taking this very seriously. I applaud this bold first step, now we must see how they implement it, because that will not be easy. If this works there will be pressure for other groups to do the same," said Mark Koepsell, the executive director of the Association of Fraternity and Sorority Advisers, which trains staff who work with many of the societies on campus.

Many deaths occur after frat house parties as well as during pledging.

In 2011, George Desdunes, a student at Cornell University, New York, died after SAE recruits kidnapped him, blindfolded and tied him up then forced him to drink copiously. The three kidnappers were cleared of all wrongdoing.

In 2012, Justin Stuart, 19, was ordered by SAE members at Salisbury University, Maryland, to recite the fraternity oath in a bin full of ice almost naked, while frat boys hosed him down. During eight weeks of pledging he was beaten, coerced into drinking and dressed in women's clothing and nappies, he told a college inquiry.

Then members locked him and others in a dark basement without food, water or a bathroom, while blasting the same German rock song at ear-splitting volume for nine hours. Mr Stuart said the treatment had elements of Guantanamo Bay and he considered it near torture.